A private moment

We have not held hands
or hugged
or snuggled up
on the couch
for a long time now

He fills our world
like dough rising in
a mould too small

But last week
as I drove
gingerly in the
crunching frost
and parked
my tired car

she looked down from
our bedroom window
her face framed
in the curtains, golden
(energy saving) light
spilling out into the night

and like a little Cheshire cat
smiled at
my upturned face ...

... I am happy

The Don of Small Things

Imagine me in a dark cave, in all encompassing nothingness, a vacuum that envelopes my mind and disorientates my body, a mindless force of nature that stops not for the laws of physics, a void, a blackhole, a hungry darkness where I cannot be sure if I am still awake or alive ...

Now imagine me trying to take a photograph of the darkness to show my friends!

That's how pointless it is to explain why I have fallen in love with WHITE NOISE. You have to read it to know what I mean ...

Don DeLillo, you are the man!

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I don't always miss her,
in fact I quite like the extra room -
to manoeuvre,
the house is less messy
and my old habit of stacking everything
in neat little
piles has come home to roost;
no one 'borrows' my toothbrush in the morning
or giggles as I struggle into my trousers
I have time to be my selfish self
and to fritter away irresponsibly
and yet, in the midst of all my
self indulgent reveries
her face pops up like
a poker ad, unpredictably
beautifully
(heartbreakingly so)
every time I hear a love song.
Last night,
it was an old one from
Junglee

note to self:

put on a brave face
for
you are a father now

smile reassuringly
nod sagely
laugh out loud
cry when he is not watching
(but never admit to it)

hug him close

wrestle him to the floor

lend him your finger

and your lumbering frame

hold her hand
and do a slow dance

so that he knows
to love her always
and be her little brave

be angry
be unfair
be weak
be human

so that he knows
that he can be better
(miles better)

and when he is taller
and wiser than you
(they always are)
and forgets your own
forgetful self

you can whisper to the wind
(for no one else will listen)
'his love will never be
more than mine for him'

father

he knows all the answers
and then
he knows none at all
and then
he knows some of them
and then
you turn into him

generic human

we all have family
friends
fear and hope
desire and anger
lust and laughter

we all crave love
and recognition
and comfort(s)

we all fear death
and loneliness
and loss of loved ones

and yet...

we all believe
in the uniqueness of
our existence

forgetting

the other 5,999,999,999 souls
who inhabit this earth
living the same lives

Raison d'etre

Sound track: 'If you ever get famous' by 'The Duke and The King'

today is ...

different, not
like yesteryears

today is ...

the day I-
-feel like I have finally grown up
-shift focus
-stop being the most important person I know
-don't mean a lot to me
-feel I have lived enough for myself

-am 32

today is ...

the day I-
-don't really care about anymore

today is ...
the first day
of my tomorrows

fame is a mask ...

... that eats into the face

He was not just once in a century

just once ... period

Mr Eliot says...

faith and love and hope are all in the waiting

so we wait

for you to

invade

conquer

vanquish

our lives as we know it now

and imbue

new meaning

into the same old wor(l)ds

that we thought we knew

to paraphrase that great man:

in the darkness you dance

as we hold still

(our breaths

our lives

our future)

in the light

a question

hungry boys
dark skinned
weeping

weeping boys
skinned in hunger
dark

dark boys
weeping skin
hungry

the truth
(anyway I look at it)
leaves me ashamed
of my comfortable life

then why do I
cling to apathy
in the midst of my shame,
choosing mere words over
selfless acts of
kindness?

smileys for fat people

:-))
double chin

:-P))
double chin sees supersize burger

:-{}))
double chin eating supersize burger

:-)))
double chin smiles after supersize burger

:-)))))
double chin looking down at plate

:-(((
double chin sees empty plate

thoughtons (thought photons)

talking to friends
suddenly
her smile finds mine

tea dust escapes the bag
hitching a ride
on hot water

the little hourglass does

cartwheels

as my desktop meditates

red LED glow
dark screen
waits for dawn

Digital Omniscience

How does one cope with spirituality in a digital world? Religion as ever is overrated - hardly worth adhering to when madmen decide what God is telling his flock, but spirituality is a different matter altogether.

Maybe God is like the internet, we all 'know' it is out there, yet it is not tangible, but for those willing to access it, there are benefits (which may only be subjective).

If so, then one could extend the analogy further - surely it does not matter if one uses FireFox or IE, AOL or Virgin, Google or Altavista, Yahoo or Hotmail ...

... if used judiciously, it helps to tap into a higher plane of awareness.

But, just like the internet, there are dangers - not surprisingly, arising from the misdemeanors of Man than the imperfections of the Entity

And as with all things, caveat emptor when choosing between ploughshares and swords.

Chinese calender: addendum et erratum

In the Chinese calender, where each year is assigned one of twelve animals, 2008 was the year of the rat, the year of the most extravagant and well planned Olympics - staged by the collective consciousness of a great people, rightly proud of their culture and heritage.

Nevertheless, I think that the Chinese have picked the wrong animal, for ...

... it was the year when a little boy who played behind his father's grocery store in Trelawny became the first man to take a breather (and a leisurely backward glance) BEFORE reaching the finish line in the most spectacular display of athletic ability that this planet has ever witnessed.

... it was the year when a father saw his dream come to life as his son leapt nimbly onto a podium to be crowned the youngest ever Formula One World Champion.

... it was the year when life imitated Morgan Freeman as intertwining streams of humanity came together in time and space to bring 'Change to America', which would have been impossible to imagine a few decades ago, in a country with seemingly permanent fault lines along inconsequential borders of skin pigmentation.

... it was also the year when, far removed from all things glamorous and newsworthy, amongst the closed down docks of an old city of migrants, a man fought off his demons and clawed his way up to his dream of a job, to spend a lifetime seeped in the rhythms and murmurs of a few hundred grams of red meat ticking away in all of us.

Surely, 2008 was The Year of the Underdog.

dry your eyes

What is it about music that grips you by the soul, far deeper than anything else ever can?

The written word does occassionally stir you emotionally and sometimes even catch you unawares, exposing something tender and raw.

Think of the breathless beauty of the closing pages of the House of God; the helpless, yet nonchalant statement of irrevocable facts of life in English Passengers; the sadness of growing up in the final lines of The Lord of the Flies; the desperation of poverty in American Gods and the searing anger refusing to Go Gently into that Good Night.

However, nothing comes close to music, whether it is classical, traditional or mainstream, in it's ability to transport you, sometimes rudely dragging you by the arm, to a place of pain and beauty, nimbly leaping over barriers of race, language and culture.

So I thought I will compile a tiny list of music to hear at least once before you die:

1. Barber's Adagio for strings - which adds leadweights to your soul in unrelenting increments, making you sink ever lower into beauty till it envelopes you completely and amniotically.
2. Tracy Chapman singing Fast car - the sheer hope of unfulfilled destiny rising from the dying embers of desperate nonexistence.
3. Don Henley coming of age in End of Innocence.
4. Third Eye Blind's definitive song for dying relationships, Motorcycle driveby.
5. Pinneyum, honed to lyrical perfection by Girish Puthenchery.
6. A R Rahman's Jage Hain in full orchestral glory.
7. Fall of a leaf gently traced on a willing cello by Imogen Holst.
8. Piano man, Billy Joel's enduring tribute to shattered dreams.
9. And today, after I dried my eyes, I added one more to my list - the blind native Australian singer Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu singing 'Bapa', mourning the loss of his father. I cannot understand a word he says, except for 'Bapa' which is surprisingly similar to the colloquial Malayalam word for father (proving that plate tectonics really happened, I guess).

Here is the youtube link for interested souls:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvJPXAV0eB4

he taught me:

to have faith in the goodness of man even when let down by others
to not define people (including myself) by colour, race or religion
to always keep my eye on the ball and swing away with all my heart
to clear a path through the forest of injustice rather than -
- fight the monster of prejudice
to learn to squeeze past the narrow minds of others
to try harder each time I fall
to accept the disappointments as I would do the successes
to not let bitterness cloud my judgement
to not lose humility in the presence of achievement
to never let others down at work
to have true passion for what I do
to not judge people on their imperfections
to be at peace with the decisions I make
to never look back in anger

and most importantly,
to have the confidence to sing very badly
and to pretend to know how to use the kitchen